Death of a Sith Lord
by Master Solo
Summary: After the events of Legacy of the Force, the galaxy fell under a blanket of darkness as another Sith Empire replaced the Galactic Alliance. Determined to vanquish the Sith and stave off its invasion of Hapes, Allana confronted the Dark Lord.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, so don't sue this poor teen.  
Characters: All canon, so start guessing  
Timeframe: LOTF and beyond  
Summary: Just look at the title.  
A/N: If LOTF and TSW didn't come out, I wouldn't have even considered doing what I'm doing, but this guy's no longer my favorite and read my bash on DevArt to see why. I won't say that the entire book of Betrayal was bad, since I adored Syal Antilles and most of the action, but there's just one little element that I absolutely abhor and I hate it enough to hop off of the canon wagon at long last. I was up extremely late, so you know what that means.  
Title: Death of a Sith Lord

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A man of about medium height and build sat upon a throne that was built approximately ten stories above the World Brain. On the ceiling above him, he displayed the most recent Holomap of the galaxy, one that included every last world of the vast empire that he had been gathering ever since the war with Corellia began more than two decades ago. He remembered vividly how he emerged as Darth Librus and stamped out the conflict with his transparisteel fist, or rather, his almost unbounded power in the Force. Bit by bit, he reformed the galaxy to the lost Sith ideals, conquering it a few planets at a time.

According to the last communiqué© that Librus received from his Yuuzhan Vong bodyguard before the gray-skinned man fell to a blaster bolt, another Jedi intruder was coming to contest his throne. Librus sighed. Those narrow-minded Jedi who would not open themselves to all aspects of the Force were making it difficult for him to improve the galaxy. Still, he had an interesting vision just a few hours ago with regard to this battle. 

The Sith stroked his beard with his wrinkled hand. The wrinkles belied his age, passing him off as decades older than he actually was as a consequence of prolonged overuse of the Force. He simply did not care, for he had already found the secret to immortality and he only needed to achieve again the full Force-immersion that he once found. He had the feeling that he was only one step away from omnipotence.

The cloaked challenger marched into Darth Librus's Coruscanti palace as the Sith Lord had predicted. The cloak swirled in the wind, revealing the challenger's tall, black-clad figure. The crimson veil on the person's face concealed the wearer's identity and it irked Jacen slightly that he did not know the face of this person, but he did not care, for like all previous challengers, this one would fall. The Sith Lord was certain, even though his visions did not confirm the fate.

"You've come to die, little Jedi." Librus activated his crimson weapon with a snap-hiss and descended from his throne.

"No, I've come to bring light to the galaxy." The challenger did likewise, revealing and saluting a golden blade.

"You want to kill me. I can feel your anger, your hatred." Jacen threw off his cloak, revealing a head full of curls that had all gone gray. The two duelists circled each other, each examining the other before daring to strike, especially not prematurely.

"I'm only here to stop you from killing more innocent people, Darth Librus," replied the Jedi in a muffled tone.

'It was necessary to sacrifice a few people to protect the rest of my empire." Then, deciding that the cloaked person was the apprentice from his latest vision, Librus refrained from attacking. It was a shame that Ben, no, Darth Nimbus, fell by the Sword, for the first apprentice was quite the resourceful Sith, but that was a necessary sacrifice; the kill was a significant blow to the Sword of the Jedi, Librus's foremost enemy. The Force showed him the apprentice, but the job of actually converting the Jedi and broadening the person's views fell to the Sith Lord.

Librus deactivated his lightsaber and invited, "You can attack me. Choose and act."

"You are unarmed. I have no choice but to not attack."

"There is always a choice," replied Librus. "What if I told you that there is no dark side?"

"That's a lie," the Jedi growled and charged at the Sith Lord with bare hands extended, ready to snap his neck upon pouncing on the old man. Anticipating the move, the aging Sith Lord caught the Jedi attacker wit Force lightning.

"Everything I tell you is a lie," responded Librus as the Jedi landed on the marble floor with smoke rising from the midnight black cloak. Not willing to risk setting the precious robes ablaze, the Jedi quickly cast aside the cloak. Librus was surprised to discover that the challenger, who was half a head taller than he was, was a woman. 

"Then I have no choice and since you are not unarmed, I have no choice but to put an end to your Sith rule!" This time, the woman charged with her saber turned on.

"Pathetic Jedi, you can't stop me. I was and still am one with the Force." The Sith welcomed the anger that began to sizzle in his veins. His patience had begun to run short as of late and future apprentice or not, the woman was beginning to agitate him. Drawing upon the endless reservoir of the Force, he grabbed hold of the woman's neck and slowly lifted her off the bloodstained but beautiful mosaic on the marble floor. "Surrender yourself, and I will teach you more about the Force than any ordinary Jed could dream of knowing." 

"No," the woman refused simply. In his fury, Librus tightened his grip exponentially and began to summon a second bolt of lightning when the woman surprised him with a response of her own. Amazingly, she was strong enough in the Force to tear free of his grip at will, but in the process, she tore apart her elegant, expensive veil of silk, revealing a familiar face to which Librus could not quite pin a name. A pair of determined, gray eyes peered from beneath the sheets of glossy, white-blonde hair that suddenly fell to the woman's waist.

All the same, Librus smiled. He had a good catch and it was a shame that she had to die soon just like every challenger before her. The woman had to be an exceptionally talented Force-user in order to be able to conceal the true extent of her powers and her presence. For a moment, Darth Librus hesitated about attacking the woman who intruded into his palace and stunned all of his guards, but then Verger's words echoed in his skull. _Choose and act._ He chose to assault the enemy, meeting her lightsaber in the middle ring with his first swipe.

"The bloodshed ends here, today." The Jedi woman fell back and pivoted on her left heel in response before spinning back onto the offensive with a blow aimed for the Sith Lord's legs.

"I'm not shedding blood. I'm bringing order to the galaxy at whatever it costs. I'm uniting the galaxy and putting an end to all war." The Sith Lord effortlessly parried the blow before launching a series of high-impact, close range attacks, each of which drove the woman a few steps backwards.

"Then why is there nothing but war here?" The woman asked as her defenses began to falter. Drop upon drop of sweat rolled down her forehead, soaking the locks of hair that strayed across her rosy face. The duel was turning out like a heavily mismatched dance in the Force.

"Why is always a question deeper than its answer, young lady." Seeing that the woman was staggering, Librus doubled his blows, forcing the opponent to back into a transparisteel window, partially shattering the brittle material upon impact.

"How do I know if that's true?" the desperate woman gasped, grappling around anywhere and everywhere for things with which she could defend herself. Her empty left fist was not close enough to the Sith's body to do any substantial amount of damage. "The dark side's driven you insane!"

"It's true from a certain point of view." Darth Librus moved in for the kill, but the struggling Jedi pushed herself backwards as hard as she could and landed on her back on one of the palace's stone balconies. "Impressive. Few survive this far."

"Few have promised their dying grandfathers to stave off Imperial invasions of sixty-three worlds." The woman rose and flung a shard of a rare vase at the Sith Emperor. With all expert skill, Darth Librus merely reflected the attack back at the sender, aiming to sever the main arteries in the neck but plowing the piece into the blonde woman's left shoulder instead. As she shrieked in pain, he lunged for the kill again. She could not possibly be his next apprentice if she could not take a small amount of bone-shattering without that banshee-like hollering.

The woman collapsed into a sorrowful heap in the far corner of the balcony, her crimson blood forever staining the costly, white marble as it seeped from her shoulder through her clothes.

The crimson blade, the weapon upon which hundreds of Jedi fell, seared rapidly through the thick layer of white-blonde hair that protected the Jedi woman. However, just as the aging Sith was about to make the incision that would end this miserable being once and for all, the woman's mental shields shattered like Alderaan's planetary shield during the planet's one-sided battle with the first Death Star. At first, it was just a painful shower of Force-generated shield pieces, but a fraction of second later, long-forgotten and repressed memories exploded into his mind. Most were not his own.

Memories of the bygone days on Yavin 4 flashed past his eyes as his ears heard innocent laughter for the first time in decades. At first, the Sith Lord watched the events from the viewpoint of another, but those memories activated his own. For the first time in eons, he heard the name Jacen. His heart rate increased until it was on the verge of overload and he was forced to sink to his knees.

Darth Librus angrily demanded who this Jacen was, but was left with no time for learn the answer as he was barraged with another onslaught of sight and sound. This time, he was in a palace playing with a little girl. Suddenly, Librus had his answers. Jacen was the part of himself that he suppressed in order to tame the galaxy and the woman who just confronted him was his own daughter. How long had it been since he last visited Hapes and received an embarrassing haircut from his only child?

The aging Sith opened his eyes and saw that not a second had passed since he was hit with the multiple blasts from the past. However, in the nanosecond that did pass, Allana had scrambled to her feet despite her sizzling pain and chanted something as she lunged toward him with her golden weapon.

_I'm sorry, Mother, that I couldn't keep your memories safe. I'll make sure he never leaves with them alive._ Jacen heard Allana think. 

"Allana, wait! I'm your father's Jacen made a last ditch effort to stave off certain death and yet at the same time keep Darth Librus at bay, weakly batting aside the saber and sending Allana back momentarily.

"I don't believe it!" Allana declared in a low growl as her loose hair and clothing whipped violently in the Coruscanti wind. "Everything you tell me is a lie!" The words seemed to travel down the building layers and for a split second, the planet seemed still as its citizens heard the eerie echoes of Allana's cry. Then, to back the violent thrusting attack of her lightsaber, Allana began to chant.

Jacen knew that it was not right to be angry at his daughter for attacking him, but he was, and that slip allowed for the Sith side to dominate his mind once again. The momentum that Allana carried had transferred over to Jacen and both crashed into the palace wall, smashing some of its gems and splattering the surfaces with blood as the woman drove the golden blade into Jacen's lungs. Allana then collapsed limply to her knees.

"Oh no, what if it's true? What if I truly did cast the death spell on my father?" Allana could not help but repeat those words absentmindedly as she stared into her blood-soaked palms. "What am I saying? I've hated and I've killed and it doesn't matter if I killed a Sith because there's no turning back." Jacen's labored breathing occasionally dotted the background.

"Very good, you've taken your first step towards your destiny, my princess. From now on, you'll be Empress Finira. Claim your inheritance and add Hapes to your new empire.' Jacen heard a dark version of his voice say to Allana. For a moment, he stood face to face with his Sith self and the two versions of Jacen merged without warning just before being washed away in the torrents of the Force. As he was torn from the physical realm piece by piece, he saw Allana's gray eyes glow a bitter, eerie orange. 

Finally, Jacen had achieved the omnipotence that he had sought since his confrontation with Onimi, but this time, he, like Anakin, was charred beyond recovery in the process.


	2. Chapter 2

The dead man before me cannot see

The dead man before me cannot weep

The dead man before me had a seed

The dead man before me threw out weeds

I was the seed that he left behind him

Now I execute people on my whim

Some people's fates are just so sithing grim

I never exile people to the Outer Rim

Jacen Solo lies in a pool of blood

Jacen Solo used the Force to flood

Jacen Solo landed with a thud

Jacen Solo made way for his little bud

That is because I forced him to

He was a mere man. What could he do?

I didn't know him as Father. Yup, it's true.

He gave me the gene for evil, too.


End file.
